When you examined the wreck, what did you see?

These waters will never drag a man down. They will never claim a human life, unless someone snorts up the wrong kind of single-celled buddy, or drunkenly tacks a sail at the wrong moment. Still, they have enough chop today to spray up your pant leg if you’re not careful. It’s as good a place as any to lay you to rest.

ATH-M50 Monitor Headphones, you have served a full 13-month tour. You were a gift. You revealed drum hits hidden on For Your Own Special Sweetheart, and held the planetarium-dome of Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid in your ample padded cups.

You clamped this head, put a pinch in this neck. Yes, you have demanded sacrifices of your host, like being able to sleep comfortably on his side.

If only there were a responsible way to march you out to a watery grave. Would you like to be parachuted to an eternal resting place on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Really, a continent made of lonely disposed things like you, forever melting and leaking your oily-spectrumed legacy into suffocated gills.

No burial at sea for you. But you wear the damage nobly, like an old battleship. Your pads may be cracked from sweat and dog teeth, but still your bearing says, “I am heavy fucking duty. No one’s gonna give you Neurosis’ Times Of Grace like I do. Please, by all means, try getting sealed into a world of pure fury and majesty with your luxury earbuds, your tinny laptop speakers!”

ATH-M50, you will be scuttled on dry land and your husk put on display. The Psychic Paramount’s II will roar through your guts one last time, scour you out with napalm purity. You were there for that one. Where other audio-output devices might have heard only shrieking chaos, you heard the fineness of the thing. It’s really doubtful that anyone can feel closeness or affection toward a piece of ordinance, but you gave a year. A hideously loud year.